with love and gratitude
Between the enormous wings the body of the plane stretches its one hundred and twenty seats or so in threes on either side towards the distant brain way up, behind the dark blue curtain and again beyond no doubt a little door. In some countries the women would segregate still to the left of the aisle, the men less numerous to the right. But all in all and civilisation considered the chromosomes sit quietly mixed among the hundred and twenty seats or so that stretch like ribs as if inside a giant centipede. Or else inside the whale, who knows, three hours, three days of maybe hell. Between doing and not doing the body floats.
To the right of the fuselage the enormous wing spreads back quite motionless on the deep blue of the high sky, the sunlight quiet on the dull-shining metal, the jet-exhausts invisible in their power save for a tremor against the blue or the propellers invisible in their speed save for a hinted halo, no cloud and from this seat no reef of nature no man-made object passing to show that the plane flies immobile at eight hundred and thirty kilometres an hour height twelve thousand metres on a sheet of paper handed over the back of the armchair in front by a black hand above Bordeaux with outside temperature minus forty-two degrees.
Inside they have pressurised the comfort. The people sit hidden in their high armchairs but for a few head-tops bald fluffy blond curly back between the port and starboard engines, looked after cradled in their needs, eat drink smoke talk doze dream and didn’t catch what you said.
— That curtain up there between us and the first class. It reminds me of a tabernacle.
— Oh. Yes.
— Or a Greek Orthodox church. Have you ever—
— Oh yes and travel-talk ensues half drowned in air-conditioning and other circumstantial emptiness with the eyes gazing at the blue temperature of minus forty-two degrees.
At any minute now some bright or elderly sour no young and buxom chambermaid in black and white will come in with a breakfast-tray, put it down on the table in the dark and draw back the curtains unless open the shutters and say buenos días, Morgen or kalimera who knows, it all depends where the sleeping has occurred out of what dream shaken up with non merci nein danke no thank you in a long-lost terror of someone offering etwas anderes, not ordered.
Or a smooth floor-steward in white.
The stewardess in pale grey-blue and high pale orange hair puts down the plastic tray covered with various foods in little plastic troughs.
— Mineralwasser bitte.
— Mineralwasser? Leider haben wir keins. Nur Sodawasser.
— Also dann Sodawasser.
Which bears no label. Leider nicht.
The decorative metal locks on each door of the cupboard shine in the shaft of bright light coming through from the left where the wooden shutters meet. They have Napoleonic hats and look like Civil Guards, the one on the right door carrying the vertical latch that hangs down in relief like a rifle at rest. Next to the cupboard the smaller doors of the dressing-table repeat the motif darkly and unreflecting. On the two drawers of the dressing-table, above the smaller doors, the Civil Guards lie horizontal.
Beyond the wooden shutters and way down below the layered floors of stunned consciousnesses waking dreams nightmares lost senses of locality the cars hoot faintly poop-pip-poop the trams tinkle way down below in the grand canyon and an engine revs up in what, French German Portuguese.
The dark shape of the cupboard unrounds in the half-light. On the bedside-table stands the bottle of mineral water, its label still illegible. No one comes in offering anything.
The florid American priest leans forward, fills the round window as shoulders fill a slipped halo, watching the sea of cloud way down below no doubt, that draws the gaze into an idle fantasy of stepping out and bouncing on it as on a trampoline, unless the cloud has cleared, the window set quite low, the long thin mouth embedded in the cardiac flesh talking of tabernacles which proclaim that the cloud has not cleared, for he turns again and says in some countries the women segregate still to the left of the aisle, the men less numerous alas to the right introducing himself as Father Brendan O’Carawayseed or some such name. The girl lays her rich auburn head on the lap of the handsome man cross-legged above the caption He’ll always remember Piquant. Of course the Church must change, but the world can’t call the tune.
The dawn has quite unrounded the corners of the cupboard made of teak, built in up to the ceiling and therefore without corners. It has pale oak vertical bars for handles. The light roars full of traffic through the yellow cotton curtains on the right.
The label on the bottle says VICHY ETAT — Eau Minérale Naturelle. VICHY. Station du foie et de l’estomac. Toutes maladies de la nutrition. Saison thermale: Mai — Octobre. L’eau de Vichy CELESTINS constitue l’eau de régime des hépatiques, diabétiques, dyspeptiques. Prise aux repas, elle facilite la digestion et régularise l’intestin. Elle doit aussi sa réputation mondiale aux résultats obtenus too small however to read in the half light.
And yet the central heating has the unrelaxed intensity of a cold northern night, the sheeted puffed up eiderdown that causes sweat and falls off causing coolness indicates an outside temperature of minus forty-two degrees perhaps although the body stretches out its many ribs in a pressurised comfort as if inside a giant centipede. Or else inside the whale who knows, three hours three nights of maybe hell. Between sleeping and not sleeping the body floats.
The cloud has cleared. Way down below the window-seat through the oval window the rectangles of agriculture brush-stroke size, the forest blobs metallic lakes the scatterings of smudged dots the thin white lines curving and straight and crossing one another make up an abstract study of some earth-goddess in brown and green. Valmar girls always get a second glance.
The bathroom door faces the entrance to the room so that the bathroom has an outside window next to the balcony window of the room. Soon some dark waiter will enter with a breakfast-tray and something else not ordered. All ideas have equality before God he will say unless some orator with eloquent gestures outside the glass booth, his words flowing into the ear through earphones in French and down at once out of the mouth into the attached mouthpiece in simultaneous German.
But no, the green or perhaps blue washbasin stands on one leg to the left of the window back to back with its neighbour which runs a small niagara at dawn or so and gurgles loud into the green or perhaps blue washbasin to the left of the window, single rooms not often having bathrooms. The decorative metal locks on each door of the cupboard shine brassy gold in the shaft of distant hoots coming through from the left where the wooden shutters meet. They have Napoleonic hats and look like Civil Guards, the one on the right door carrying a rifle at rest, those on the drawers of the dressing-table lying down. A small dot of bright light thrown by the round hole in the shutter further up the cupboard imitates the sun. Or else the telephone rings allo? er, dígame? The bottle on the bedside table says Agua Mineral.
The stewardess in navy blue comes down the aisle, carrying a tray of drinks and a small Schweppes. The menu goes all the way to Santiago. Oslo — Prague, airborne one hour and ten minutes: smørrebrød Scandinave, café. Prague — Geneva, airborne one hour: jus de fruit. Geneva — Lisbon, airborne two hours: oeuf froid italienne, coq-au-vin, pommes parisiennes, charlotte russe, café. Lisbon — Monrovia, airborne four hours and twenty minutes: smørrebrød, délice de tartine à la S.A.S., café. Monrovia — Rio de Janeiro, quartiers de pamplemousse, omelette au bacon, Rio de Janeiro — São Paolo, São Paolo — Montevideo, Montevideo — Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires — Santiago but the menu has no personal significance beyond the oeuf froid italienne the coq-au-vin the charlotte russe café and the small bottle of scuse-plisse as the dark Viennese leans right across from the left to photograph the Alps in the pink glow of bitteschön, travel-talk ensuing half-masked by air and other such conditioning to prevent any true exchange of thoughts when rhetoric flows into the ear through the earphones in French and down at once out of the mouth into the mouthpiece in simultaneous German. Out of the mouths of babes the Frenchman says with eloquent gestures, la vérité, la justice, l’humanité. The words prevent any true EXCHANGE caught in the late afternoon sun that stripes the airport hall between the slats of the Venetian blinds on the vast wall of glass beyond which the planes wait, move slowly off, rise suddenly and vanish or come in out of the blue over the unseen lake somewhere to the right of the distant mountains.